Amanda Bell had moved back across the country from Florida to Oregon about four years ago and found herself working nights at a gym front desk.

She wasn’t exactly sure what was going to come next. She still held a nearly lifelong interest in martial arts, which she also practiced growing up, combined with skills from participating in freestyle wrestling.

She just didn’t know what to do with them. On a whim, she built her passion for MMA – literally.

“There was a local promoter, and I knew about him – he would come into the gym and talk to me about (MMA),” Bell told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “Then I started talking to his girlfriend, and she said they had a show coming up some weekend and they sometimes needed people to help run the event and clean up after.

“Well, they said they started setting up at like 8 a.m., and I said, ‘Can I help set up?’ It was so interesting putting up the cage. It was like an erector set, and then finally standing inside it and watching the fights later, I said to myself, ‘I think I could do this.'”

Four years later, Bell is taking the next step. The 24-year-old resident of White City, Ore., recently signed her first professional contract with Invicta Fighting Championships. She’ll make her pro debut at 145 pounds at Invicta FC 4 on Jan. 5 in Kansas City. She will combine the training of her youth with her current commitment to the sport, which includes living at her gym, teaching and training at multiple locations after already building a 6-1 amateur career.

Living in her southern Oregon town, Bell is another of a growing number of examples of women who not long ago didn’t even realize that MMA was a professional option for them. Now Bell and that group are continuing work to help more fans understand what they have to offer.

“Now everyone knows a female is in the UFC, but there are still a lot of fans who don’t know about what all is out there,” she said. “There’s more out there, and Invicta has had a big impact already, but there are still lots of girls going about it the wrong way.”

Early martial arts interest

It was Bell’s mother who was worried when she was a child that she would do things the wrong way.

A strongly religious woman, Bell’s mother raised a family as a single mother in the San Francisco Bay area before moving to Oregon when Bell was in middle school. Because Bell and her siblings attended school in a different town, they often relied on each other for entertainment.

That is, until Bell discovered martial arts. She carried an interest in the sport for several years before her mother would finally let her try a class. That came after she did some training and competing in freestyle wrestling, but she searched for an option not as grueling.

“Of course it’s a sport I take seriously, and I pick that one that a lot of people say is the hardest,” she said. “Then I picked up on a martial arts class, and we did a lot of different things. It was a great learning experience for me.”

Bell’s early classes covered martial arts from defensive, spiritual, movement and best targets on the body perspectives. It was a wide base that she learned quickly, which unknowingly was preparing her for a coming career.

“I graduated from high school and went to Florida, and I found a school there that did some of the same things,” she said. “But that wasn’t for me. I came back (to Oregon), and I was trying to figure out what to do.”

Gaining confidence

Bell was still trying to make decisions about where to take her life next when she took a job as a night desk clerk at a local gym. Then, a few conversations with the local promoter and his girlfriend – and the physical construction of a cage for the first time – changed her view.

After she decided MMA seemed like an interesting challenge, completely changing her previous view that it was an unorganized bunch of brawlers, she accepted her first amateur fight, which didn’t much resemble what she would later experience. It was an unsanctioned bout for which the 195-pound Bell faced an opponent who weighed in at 250 pounds.

After a victory, she continued dropping to lower weight classes while consistently collecting victories. She eventually changed trainers and gyms, but she kept the enthusiasm for the sport that led her to make it her full-time commitment.

Along the way, she learned that not everyone in the sport had her best interests in mind, a lesson other fighters have learned in more painful ways. As her name grew up circles that followed amateur MMA in the area, Bell received a stream of advice against the promoter who gave her the first opportunity.

She has changed trainers and gyms, but she has maintained her enthusiasm for MMA. She fought her second bout at just over 180 pounds, and by her third fight she was down to 167. As she dropped weight, she gained experience, and her amateur MMA reputation grew.

Then recently, her options expanded to a professional career, which will begin at Invicta. For the time being, though, Bell is trying to approach the opportunity as she has her other fights.

“I’ve been an amateur for about four years, so I’m not rushing into this,” she said. “I’m feeling kind of the same as I did before my other fights, but there are more people noticing. It’s been a fun experience.”

Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel pens “Fight Path” each week. The column focuses on the circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.

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